Resolution calling for a Referendum of No Confidence in Chancellor Mildred García, Interim President Emily Cutrer, and Provost Karen Moranski

Resolved: that the Sonoma State University (SSU) Academic Senate urge the California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees to take immediate, bold, and decisive action to terminate Chancellor Mildred Garcia’s appointment and to appoint leadership who are committed to both the values and mission of the CSU system and to authentic shared governance with CSU faculty; and be it

Resolved: that the SSU Academic Senate urge the CSU Board of Trustees to immediately undertake a search for a permanent President for SSU, to restore accountability, to promote stability in leadership, and to appoint a leader who will uphold the values and mission of SSU; and be it

Resolved: that the SSU Academic Senate urge the CSU Board of Trustees to take immediate, bold, and decisive action to terminate Provost Moranski and to bring in new leadership who are committed to both the values and mission of SSU, and to meaningful shared governance with SSU faculty; and be it

Resolved: that the SSU Academic Senate sponsor an all-faculty referendum on the resolution of no confidence in Chancellor García’s, Interim President Cutrer’s, and Provost Moranski’s leadership as outlined in the ballot below, and include this resolution and its accompanying rationale in the ballot statement; and therefore be it

Resolved, that this resolution be distributed to the following for serious and timely consideration, and for even wider issuance:

Governor Gavin Newsom
Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis
U.S. Representative Mike Thompson
Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire; Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry
State Senator Christopher Cabaldon
Assemblymember Chris Rogers
Assemblymember Damon Connolly
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas
State Senator John Laird
Assembly Education Committee Chair Al Muratsuchi
Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee 1 Chair John Laird
Assembly Higher Education Committee Chair Mike Fong
Assembly Budget Committee Chair Jesse Gabriel
Assembly Budget Subcommittee 3 Chair David Alvarez
CSU Board of Trustees
Chancellor Mildred García
SSU Interim President Emily Cutrer
SSU Provost Karen Moranski
SSU Vice President of Administration and Finance and Chief Financial Officer Monir Ahmed
SSU Vice President for Advancement Mario Perez
SSU Vice President for Strategic Enrollment Ed Mills
SSU Vice President for Student Affairs Gerald L. Jones
SSU Senior Director of Athletics Nicole Annaloro
Save Seawolves Athletics, Benjamin Ziemer
California Faculty Association
California State University Employees Union
Teamsters Local 2010
UAW Academic Student Employee
Academic Senate of the CSU Chair Elizabeth Boyd
Emeritus and Retired Faculty and Staff Association (ERFSA)
American Association of University Professors
SSU Chair of Staff Council Gillian Estes
SSU Associated Students President Vanessa Sanchez
Students for Quality Education (SQE) Northern California Student Organizing Coordinator Ade
Guiterrez-Diaz
Sonoma State Alumni Association
Joseph Saveri Law Firm
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
Rohnert Park Mayor Gerard Giudice
Rohnert Park City Council
Santa Rosa Mayor Mark Stapp
Santa Rosa City Council
The Press Democrat, Marissa Endicott, Austin Murphy, and Chris Fusco
The Chronicle of Higher Education Editor-in-Chief Michael G. Riley and Managing Editor Evan R. Goldstein
Inside Higher Ed Managing Editor Tim Phang and Editor-in-Chief Sara Custer
EdSource, Amy DiPierro
SF Chronicle, Nanette Asimov
CBS News Bay Area, Tony Hicks
KGO-TV, ABC7 Bay Area, Cornell Barnard, Monica Madden, J.R. Stone, Lena Howland, and Tara Campbell
KQED, Katie DeBenedetti
KRCB, Noah Abrams and Michelle Marques
CalMatters, Mikhail Zinshteyn
LA Times, Colleen Shalby
SSU STAR, Austin Metzger, Mackenzie Blosser, and Rylan Valdepena

1.) Budgetary Mismanagement

Chancellor Mildred García, Interim President Emily Cutrer, and Provost Karen Moranski have failed to safeguard SSU’s welfare and fiscal health which has caused wanton harm through needless department and program cuts and faculty layoffs. Specifically,

They are responsible for SSU’s unprecedented and needless cuts and layoffs, announced by email on the 2nd day of the Spring 2025 term, which include:
- 25% of SSU faculty, 6 departments, 23 degree programs, all 13 NCAA Division II Athletics, 16 represented staff, and the mergers of additional departments and programs, and
The timing of the cuts
- precluded students from immediately transfering, given that tuition, fees, and housing costs were no longer refundable and came after the student transfer portal had closed for Athletics’ placements, and
- precluded faculty relocations on the academic job market, since applications to tenure-track jobs for 2025-26 had already closed for the vast majority of positions;
It is implausible that these cuts were decided upon suddenly in January, therefore impacted parties should have been notified earlier;² and
The Interim President and Provost have shielded the Chancellor from public backlash to her financial mismanagement which led to these cuts and layoffs; and
These cuts and layoffs were enacted brutally and without compassion, foresight, or any sound economic reason.

Chancellor Mildred García’s financial mismanagement should have led to the Interim President’s and Provost’s strong fiscal advocacy for SSU instead of replicating her failed economic policies. Specifically,

The Interim President’s and Provost’s pattern of financial mismanagement includes the failure to proactively address budget challenges, to craft a sound fiscal plan based on reliable data, plus a refusal to authorize CSU investments, reserve funds and other assets; and
- Multiple factors have contributed to SSU’s fiscal crisis, including but not limited to rising operational costs, unfunded mandates, increasing infrastructure maintenance, and economic pressures exacerbated by inflation, yet
  - They have failed to advocate effectively on behalf of SSU when the Chancellor exacerbated SSU’s underlying challenges through her allocation of CSU funds, and
- In addition, other funds are available to strategically and effectively resolve current problems: in 2022, the CSU system had over $6.5 billion in unrestricted net assets and ran a $2.1 billion budget surplus; in June of 2024, over $775 million set aside for “Reserves for Economic Uncertainty.”³ The Chancellor chose to place these unrestricted net assets in fungible Wall Street investments.
- In fact the State legislature advised the Chancellor to use these assets to help fund any temporary reduction in the State’s ability to fund the CSU. Chancellor Mildred García has chosen not to do that.
- Neither the Interim President nor the Provost have pushed back against García’s financial choices, instead choosing to repeat this model at SSU.

2.) Poor Financial Practices

Chancellor Mildred García, Interim President Emily Cutrer, and Provost Karen Moranski have engaged in a manner of leadership reliant on consistently poor financial practices. Specifically,
Chancellor García relies on external consulting firms, i.e. Huron Consulting and AASCU Consulting (formerly APC), with histories of promoting financial austerity, faculty layoffs, and weakened tenure protections (raising red flags about her employment as former President of AASCU Consulting); and
- Universities that have followed Huron Consulting’s recommendations, e.g. West Virginia University, The New School (New York, NY), and the University of Wisconsin have suffered mass layoffs and program eliminations. Under García, the CSU is headed in the same direction; and
The Chancellor uses financial analytics and external consultants to justify austerity measures and cataclysmic cuts to programs, departments, and faculty – even when these are profitable and beneficial for their communities and for the State; and
The Chancellor’s new multi-million dollar AI initiative partners the public CSU with private, for-profit corporations.⁴ She authorized this without consultation with ethicists, bypassing shared governance, and disregarding the CSU’s core mission as a public institution, not a private venture; and
- This initiative ignores academic freedom, intellectual property, language rights, climate rights, unauthorized surveillance, and does not safeguard against the risks of for-profit data mining. This follows an overall increase to security risks through downsizing SSU’s IT department; and
SSU serves as a canary in the coalmine for austerity-driven cuts (reflective of the current Federal Government under DOGE) and as a cautionary tale for the future welfare of other CSU’s; and
The Provost has systematically reduced assigned time for SSU faculty who engage in High Impact Practices (HIPs) such as supervision of undergraduate research, internships, and service learning;⁵ and
- She has systematically attempted to reduce assigned time for Department Chairs (both in 2024 and again in 2025), reducing their ability to effectively lead their departments due to their needing to do more for less; and
Soaring Administrative salaries have increased exponentially despite decreases to instructional expenditures and enrollment.⁶

3.) Instability and Failure of Leadership

Chancellor Mildred García, Interim President Emily Cutrer, and Provost Karen Moranski have abandoned SSU to an ineffectual leadership vacuum after years of past instability and mismanagement – leading to layoffs, cuts, and mergers – yet they refuse to acknowledge their accountability for their current participation in these. Specifically,

Interim President Cutrer admits she will assume no responsibility for the devastating consequences of her layoffs, cuts, and mergers. She stated publicly: “I will not be held accountable” as the Provost sat by in support;⁷ and
Chancellor García has exacerbated SSU’s leadership instability in her appointment of a yet another new Interim President, the third since 2022, only to then pause the search for a permanent President (with SSU in disarray); and
All refuse to be held accountable for their actions, for their abuses of power, and for their denigration of the ideal of expertise, as well as to their harms inflicted upon marginalized groups and to public servants when: tenured, award-winning, and outstanding faculty, scholars, teachers, and mentors have lost their positions; first-gen, minority, underserved, and marginalized students and athletes have been displaced and Otherized; and the voices of those affected have been ignored as their futures are threatened; and
The SSU Academic Senate – as the official governing body representing SSU Faculty – issued a clear-cut condemnation of Administration’s actions on Feb. 27, in “the Resolution Opposing the Proposed Cuts.” This resolution demanded (in summary):

That Chancellor Mildred García and Interim President Emily Cutrer immediately cease all “plans and announcements of cuts, mergers, and terminations of departments, faculty, staff, and athletics”;
A new collaborative and transparent leadership model be implemented at SSU;
Shared governance be overhauled to include appropriate community collaboration before critical decisions are either made or executed;
Attacks on tenure be ceased;
That Administration be held to account for their actions.

4.) General Violations of Shared Governance

Under Chancellor Mildred García’s, Interim President Emily Cutrer’s, and Provost Karen Moranski’s failed leadership, shared governance has been systematically undermined to exclude faculty in matters surrounding curriculum, faculty workload, hiring, and the integrity and inviolability of the CSU’s and SSU’s commitments. Specifically,

Their consolidation of administrative control has precluded faculty and others from participating in shared governance and decision-making processes, with limited transparency, communication, or reciprocity of dialogue; and
The cuts detailed on Jan. 22 were announced without any consultation with the SSU Academic Senate, affected Departments or programs, or faculty (including coaches); and
The Interim President’s announcement – again, by email – after the cuts, that UBAC (University Budget Advisory Committee) should receive proposals for new or existing programs if funding were to be restored, which violates the CSU Tenets of Shared Governance because UBAC has no jurisdiction to participate in shared governance:
- New programs or modifications of existing programs are always reviewed through college curriculum committees, Educational Policy Committee (EPC), and the SSU Academic Senate as recognized representative faculty bodies, following enshrined policy and procedure;⁸ and
On Mar. 13, the SSU Academic Senate stated its absolute rejection of any legitimacy given to sending proposals to UBAC by its voting unanimously to endorse the “Educational Policies Committee Recommendation to the Academic Senate, Sonoma State University” rejecting the Program Discontinuations Proposal, which made the case that EPC and SSU Senate (as representative faculty bodies) would not recommend that programs be discontinued through faculty governance because of a rushed timeline; and
- EPC noted trends in the 43 programs they reviewed for discontinuation, comprised of:
  1.) An inappropriate program discontinuance submission process,
  2.) The program discontinuance proposal did not provide the information as requested and required,
  3.) Inadequate opportunity for consultation.

5.) Attempts to Subvert SSU’s Program Discontinuation Policy

Despite the Interim President’s and Provost’s attempts to subvert SSU’s program discontinuation process through UBAC, after they had failed to subvert it during EPC’s faculty consultative process and policy, Administration continued trying to discontinue SSU’s financially viable programs without appropriate faculty consultation; Specifically,

A timeline for Administrative subversion of SSU program discontinuation processes is as follows:

Program discontinuations must follow the regulation detailed by the CSU Board of Trustees requiring that “The President shall review the proposal with the advice of the campus academic senate and/or appropriate representative committees constituted for this task;” SSU policy further requires that program discontinuation “should not be initiated to address short-term financial crisis or personnel shortages,” yet the Interim President and Provost have grossly violated these regulations;⁹ and
The Interim President blindsided faculty on Mar. 7 with newly emailed demands for UBAC “proposals” – after faculty had already spent the whole prior year working to satisfy the Provost’s failed academic reorganization – requiring that programs, departments, and faculty justify and defend their existence so as to be eligible to compete for dwindling resources in a zero-sum game which pits SSU departments, programs, and faculty against one another;¹⁰ ^,¹¹ and
Should all or part of the budget to SSU be restored, the Interim President's and Provost’s priority should be to restore Athletics, all academic programs and departments that they threaten to cut, and to cease faculty layoffs, which might stabilize further enrollment losses and mitigate the crisis they have caused; and
The Interim President’s email soliciting UBAC “proposals” from faculty stated four “Guiding Principles” that determined whether or not a program were deemed of value to her, of: 1.) Student Success; 2.) Equity, Inclusion and Belonging; 3.) Innovative and Sustainable Future; and 4.) Engagement with our North Bay Community. These principles are exactly what our existing programs have already proven to foster (including those slated to be cut); and
UBAC is not an elected body that represents SSU faculty; and
UBAC is not a voting body and only receives reports, so it cannot constitute faculty consultation or shared governance surrounding curricular decisions; and
The Interim President and Provost are aware of the correct process for shared governance and for SSU’s discontinuation policy; the California Faculty Union (CFA) had been working directly with AVP FA Diane Guido on the requirements of the meet and confer process for layoffs, for the reorganization of academic departments, and for the elimination of athletics; and
The Interim President and Provost are trying to use UBAC to create the illusion of shared governance and faculty consultation.

6.) Reputational Damage to SSU and Erosion to its Core Mission

Chancellor Mildred García, Interim President Emily Cutrer, and Provost Karen Moranski have created an environment of distrust, disenfranchisement, and disillusionment at (and towards) SSU, leading to its irreparable reputational damage and hurting its future legacy, its long-term viability, and its mission to provide a liberal arts education.

Their actions have led to mass dissent against cuts, mergers, and layoffs – include current and pending student transfers, petitions, protests, rallies, news stories, social media campaigns, public outcry, multiple lawsuits, lawmakers’ rebukes at the city, county, and State level;¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁸^,¹⁹^,and
Lawmakers spent over five (5) hours in a public hearing demanding a 30-60 day “comeback plan” yet faculty have not been meaningfully included in that plan and did not hear a single word about it until three (3) full weeks after the campus hearing – and then, only after multiple lawmakers demanded a plan; and
There has been loss at SSU to its morale, reputation, and stability, with faculty now seeking work elsewhere – which will only harm existing programs not slated for cuts plus the ability to attract faculty to current ones; and
Administration have generated disdain from students who have sued for civil rights remedy, fraud, and misrepresentation over the cuts and layoffs, as even students in stable existing programs openly disparage SSU Admin, with many expressing plans to transfer;²⁰ and
Their plan to transform SSU from a high-functioning liberal arts college, as California’s only member of COPLAC that is also an HSI, into a primarily vocational school is unacceptable and will lead to further, future rounds of cuts while eroding the mission of the CSU and the unique vision of SSU; and
Their alterations to SSU’s core mission, in a high-cost-of-living area recovering from the aftermath of pandemics and wildfires, risks diminishing middle-class opportunities for regional students to access high quality education, exacerbating class divides; and
Providing opportunities for education and upward mobility is part of why SSU is such a valuable, critical investment to the region. California’s economic strength and academic contributions are intertwined with regional Higher Educational access; and
The 1961 Donohoe Higher Education Act establishes “The primary function of the [CSU] is…to include undergraduate and graduate instruction in the liberal arts and sciences.”²¹^,²² Administration have failed to maintain an environment where scholarship, research, creative, artistic, and professional activities are valued and supported at SSU, essential to fulfilling SSU’s stated mission which is “driven by a commitment to the liberal arts and sciences”;²³ and
Specific departments, programs, and faculty targeted with cuts are all central to SSU’s mission commitment to the liberal arts and sciences as well as to “prepare students for meaningful citizenship in a complex world”;²⁴ and
It violates SSU’s mission for Administration to cut or merge non-consenting departments and programs in areas detailed by our own mission statement.

In short, we refuse to let leadership gamble with the present or the future of Sonoma State. Chancellor Mildred García, Interim President Emily Cutrer, and Provost Karen Moranski are not able to lead the CSU or SSU on a meaningful or viable path forward as they have sowed chaos with impunity through budgetary mismanagement, poor financial practices, dismal leadership, violations of shared governance and subversions of well-established discontinuation policies, unilateral decisions to slash-and-burn departments, programs, faculty, and staff to leave behind an unrecognizable SSU, long-lasting reputational damage to SSU, anger within the community towards SSU, and an attempted erosion of the CSU’s and SSU's respective missions.

Therefore the SSU Academic Senate urges faculty to formally support a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Mildred García, Interim President Emily Cutrer, and Provost Karen Moranski.

Approved by the Senate 4/3/2025